


Stolen

by Claudia_flies



Series: MCU Kink Bingo [16]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cats, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Grand larceny, Kleptomania, MCU Kink Bingo, Sex in a Car, Thievery, spy games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 21:45:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18432722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Claudia_flies/pseuds/Claudia_flies
Summary: It’s the little things that go first. A cup of coffee he swears he put down on the table a moment ago. A spare clip. His warm gloves that do at least some to fight the dampness of DC’s winter. All things that he could have quite possibly just mislaid by accident.





	Stolen

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the MCU Kink Bingo 'Characters are a Thief and a Victim' square.
> 
> This story was almost called ‘Loot in the boot’, but the actual title is from the song of the same name by The Dashboard Confessional which played at my wedding.
> 
> Beta'd by Zilia.

 

 

 

It’s the little things that go first. A cup of coffee he swears he put down on the table a moment ago. A spare clip. His warm gloves that do at least something to fight the dampness of DC’s winter. All things that he could have quite possibly just mislaid by accident.

It takes Clint a while to figure out the identity of the thief, which is a surprise in itself, until it becomes apparent _who_ it is. It’s really an accident how he figures it out. One of the interns manages to knock over an entire tray of coffee cups in the cubicle hell that is the fifth floor of the Triskelion and everyone turns to look. It’s from the corner of his eye that he sees her; the flash of her red hair and sleight of hand as a bar of chocolate disappears from his desk.

He doesn’t say anything, doesn't call attention to the fact that he noticed anything untoward. It’s just a chocolate bar from the downstairs coffee cart after all. But it does make him think about the things that have gone missing. None of them are valuable. It’s not his wallet or his phone or even his SHIELD ID card.

The thought sticks in his mind all evening, through the greasy takeaway and aimless television programs he uses to pass the time between ops. In the morning he finds himself picking up that chocolate bar again from the coffee cart in the foyer on his way to the office. Shoving it into the pocket of his coat. He leaves the coat by his desk when he heads down to the range, just haphazardly thrown over the chair.

When he gets back a few hours later, the chocolate bar is gone.

He hadn’t really seen Natalia much after they’d arrived in Andrews Air Force Base and she’d been whisked off by Coulson and his team. He thinks she goes by Natasha now, or at least that’s what her SHIELD personnel file says in the in-house directory. He’d asked after her of course, had been met with a bland non-answer every time, and eventually he’d stopped. She’d agreed to come in to SHIELD, not to him personally, even if he’d felt there’d been something of a connection between them. Something other than the regular, run-of-the-mill asset and a handler.

He touches the fabric on the inside of the pocket, imagines her fingers there, sliding the chocolate bar out. It was dark chocolate with sea salt and caramel, not one of those super expensive ones, but pretty good. European brand. He wonders if she likes them, if she’s already eaten it, or is saving it to savor later.

He doesn’t really think when that evening, rather than driving straight home, he drives to Macy’s and buys a beautiful pair of women’s gloves. They’re black leather with a woolen lining. He rips off the tags in the car and leaves them on the passenger seat for tomorrow.

They don’t last long in his cubicle, disappearing during the morning coffee break from under his own hat and gloves.

That’s how it goes for a few weeks. He gets into the habit of buying things for two. Two coffees in the morning, two mid-afternoon pastries, two chocolate bars and two little cartons of juice once in a while. They all disappear without him ever catching sight of the culprit. He wonders if this is the only connection they’ll ever share. He wonders if it’s enough.

But as always, she has a way of surprising him.

Clint likes the roof garden of the Triskelion, especially in winter. The wind is biting and cold and no one else is there. It’s a good place to come and get some distance, look down and see all of SHIELD and DC spread out before him. To feel in control, to feel like he’s not slowly turning into another paper pusher. A little cog in the massive machinery that is SHIELD.

He knows she’s there long before she steps next to him on the railing, because she lets him. She’s wearing the gloves, the ones from Macy’s. They look good on her, and he can’t help but smile.

“I know you saw me,” she says without preamble. “With the chocolate bar.”

Clint makes a non-committal hum, but carries on looking at the grey horizon.

“I just can’t figure it out,” she huffs, sounding frustrated. “What’s your angle?”

“It just felt like maybe you needed those things.” He shrugs, suddenly realizing how unwilling he is to explore his motivations, even to himself.

“I’m not selling what you’re trying to buy.” Her voice is hard, and that does make Clint turn and look. “At least not for so little,” she continues, her face twisted into something ugly.

“I’m not –, that’s not –,” he tries, finding the words caught up in his throat.

“Nothing is for free,” she says darkly.

“Well, it kinda is if you’re stealing it, right?” he asks. “I mean, isn’t that the point?”

She gives him one last, venomous look and turns on her heel to leave the roof.

She doesn’t stop stealing though.

The next thing to go is his favorite Heckler & Koch P30 sidearm. He places a replacement request with requisitions and then goes on the hunt. It takes him a while to decide what to get, but eventually he settles on a custom Walther PPK/S .380acp and a Blackhawk Serpa holster. It’s stylish yet economical, and for some reason, Clint feels like it would suit her better than the H&K.

This time, it takes longer. He has to leave the gun and holster on his desk overnight before it disappears. But disappear it does, and Clint smiles when he comes in that morning with the two coffees held in a paper carrier.

The next time he sees her, it’s on an op in Pittsburgh and she’s wearing the thigh holster. She doesn’t say anything, just gives him a bleary look when she sees him looking. The gun does suit her, and she takes out four AIM agents with it. Clint grins at her on the return flight in the jet, giddy somehow, and this time she smiles back, a hesitant sort of thing, but it’s still there.

He finds the H&K back in his locker the next morning with a full clip.

And so it goes still. With pens and canteen jello and endless cups of coffee and even one of his old SHIELD t-shirts, or at least he thinks it’s her rather than his own forgetfulness with that one. Clint buys more chocolate and fluffy socks and Trader Joe’s truffle almonds because eventually he runs out of ideas of what to get her.

When he buys a tub of cookie butter, he’s rewarded with a post-it note that only says ‘MORE!’ in aggressive capital letters. He has no problem obeying that order.

It’s a rainy October evening when he gets a text message from an unknown number saying ‘come’ with an address in Columbia Heights. It could be a trap, of course. But there’s a flavor to the order that he knows now, so he jumps into his beat-up Corolla and drives up. It’s not even that far.

It turns out to be a top-floor apartment in a fairly run-down building, and when he knocks on the door, Natasha opens. She’s wearing jeans and a sweater and her hair is in a ponytail. He sees _it_ as soon as he steps inside. A small black cat, frozen in mid-pounce on a threadbare couch. It looks at him with wide yellow eyes.

“They’d left it outside the shelter in a box, so I stole it.” Natasha says, and it’s the first time he’s heard hesitance in her voice.

They watch as the black little cat jumps down from the couch, sniffs around the discolored rug, and eventually flops down in front of the armchair and goes to sleep.

“That’s how you did it at home,” she says suddenly. “If you needed anything, wanted anything, you stole it.”

Clint just hums, crouching down to get a better look at the sleeping cat. It opens one of its eyes to look at him in return.

“I don’t know what to do with you, Clinton Francis Barton,” she says, shaking her head. “No one gives things away for free.”

“I still maintain that if you steal it, it’s free,” he says, still looking at the cat. They have a nice Mexican stand-off going on and he’d hate to break it. “Come on, let’s go to Petco, neither one of us has anything for a cat.”

They get into Clint’s car, and drive to a nearby strip mall. Petco smells of despair and fish food, but they do find food and toys and litter tray. Natasha looks at the stand where you can customize a name tag.

“It should have a name,” she says. “Everything deserves a name.”

They don’t have a collar for it, and nowhere to put a tag. Natasha leaves the name tags alone and they buy whatever they’ve managed to pile into the cart.

When they get back, the cat’s taken a piss in the kitchen, but it’s easy enough to clean off the linoleum floor. It eats like a pig from one of Natasha’s ancient-looking cracked cereal bowls, getting a mess of food everywhere. Afterward, it ambles over to the living room and climbs up onto the couch and onto Natasha's lap.

She pets its fur, running her finger up its spine.

“Liho,” she says. “Little Liho.”

Clint knows what it means, and maybe it’s sort of fitting. Misfortunate the lot of them.

The cat ends up living with both of them, or whoever’s not on an op at the time. Sometimes Clint has to pawn the creature off on his neighbor for a few days, but mostly they manage, and the cat seems happy enough.

After the cat, the stealing stops and Clint somehow feels bereft. The second coffee cup left untouched at his desk. The chocolate bar still in his pocket when he returns from meetings. Even the jar of cookie butter mocks him from his desk days later. He feels bereft, worried that he’s done something wrong.

They still ferry the cat between their apartments, but that’s all. Like divorced parents who no longer know what to say to one another, and he hates it. He has to find something else, something to give her. When the op comes across his desk in late November, Clint instantly knows what he wants to do. It’s just a matter of gathering up the courage for it.

An international arms dealer. An experimental scope stolen from an army R&D unit. National Security risk. Blah, blah blah. It’s always the same fucking deal, but maybe this time it’ll at least be fun.

He finds her at the gym, the area strangely empty where she’s training with a punching bag. She looks up when he enters, the door of the gym swinging loudly behind him. She stops and holds the swinging bag in her wrapped hands, looking at him, and he can’t read her face.

Instead of saying anything, he hands her the file. As she looks through it, her face slowly begins to light up, a corner of a lip rises to a half-smile, and her eyes widen as she gets to the security details page. After only about a minute, she slams the folder closed and looks at him with hunger.

“When do we go?”

Clint smiles too, excited and giddy. “End of the week,” he says, and he can’t wait.

The Sunday arrives with cloudy skies and a threat of rain. They pull out of the SHIELD motor pool with an unremarkable black SUV and drive out of the city. When they finally arrive at their destination, it’s late afternoon and the whole area is almost empty. Filled with high-rise office buildings; bank, consultancy and investment firm names litter the front doors and sides of buildings. The side streets are hollow and empty, all the workers at home with their families.

It’s easy as pie to drive into the underground garage and swipe in with a cloned ID. The building itself is an unremarkable grey, and even the guard booth is empty, just the electronic surveillance catching sight of their blacked-out SUV with number plates that won’t register on camera.

They both know exactly where the cameras are when Clint parks the car in a carefully chosen bay, and it only takes them a few minutes to make their way to the first access point. Natasha makes hacking into the security system looks like child’s play, and Clint has no problem taking a back seat for this particular op. She works silently and efficiently, and they advance through the floors into the basement level in only ten minutes, stopping on each floor to disable the security circuits and loop the camera feeds.

It’s all in a day’s work, until they descend down the last set of stairs into the vault, and there _it_ is, right in front of them. The round door takes up almost an entire wall at the end of the corridor. The metal gleams under the spotlights, the constantly shifting numbers on the locking interface covering everything in eerie green light. Clint’s seen one once before.

“They got one of these at the Bellagio in Vegas. A bitch of a thing to break into,” he murmurs, while Natasha closes the last circuit to loop the feeds on this floor. She closes the hatch with a click and turns her attention to the vault.

“Yeah,” she sighs, coming to stand next to him, and she sounds happier than he’s ever heard her. She stares at the shifting numbers, at the huge metal crate protecting everything, and there’s a kind of hunger in her he’s never seen before. For a second, Clint thinks of the story of Moses and the red sea. He wonders if this is how Moses had watched those breaking waves, knowing that he’d be the master of them in a brief space of time.

For the next forty-five minutes, they don’t speak at all. They work side by side, movements coordinated and precise, and it feels like a magic trick, a sleight of hand at the circus that Clint has worked so hard to forget. It feels familiar somehow, the Magician and the Assistant. Watching Natasha’s fingers do things inside the belly of the machinery that should not be possible by human hands. The way the giant door hums and ticks around them, the sound of it magnified in their ears.

She closes her eyes and smiles like she knows, only a fraction of a second before the huge bolts release, and with a hiss of compressed air, the door swings open. They still don’t speak as they watch the dark cavern beyond being revealed. It’s a perfect moment in the dark, until the spotlights blink on and illuminate the safe’s interior.

The shelves are only half-filled. Containers and boxes and rows and rows of unmarked bills. It takes him a moment to locate what he’s looking for, but eventually in the back left corner, he finds the hard plastic case of the scope. It looks almost like a modern briefcase, and Clint pulls it down from the shelf.

He wonders if Coulson would notice if he took it to the range early tomorrow morning to try it out.

When he looks up, Natasha’s hunched over the computer console near the door, busy releasing a virus into the computer systems. There’s no reason not to leave a parting gift.

Their exit from the building is entirely unremarkable. The sun is beginning to set, painting the glass towers in pinks and purples as they drive towards the highway. The roads are quiet as darkness descends and Clint keeps driving. The silence settled between them is heavy and tense. He can hear Natasha’s even breathing. See her from the corner of his eye, sitting straight and staring at the dark road in front of them.

“Pull over,” she says suddenly, and he does. Off the next available exit and turning into an empty car park off an abandoned strip mall.

“Get in the back,” she says as soon as he’s turned off the engine. The car is dark around them, quiet, the lights of the dashboard off and the closest streetlight broken. They’re both in shadow as he opens the driver’s side door and gets out.

He hears her door opening too, see the back door on her side open and close. She’s waiting for him as he slides into the seat, eyes wide and hungry in the gloom. She grabs ahold of the front of his uniform, pulling him to her and into a bruising kiss. Her teeth are sharp and hard on his lip, like she thinks she still needs to fight, like she has something to prove. He lets her, lets her win, going soft and easy in her hold, opening his mouth to her and letting her tongue conquer as she pleases.

She climbs over him, straddling him where he sits, knees pressing into his hips, and he hasn’t forgotten how she can kill with them. He slides his hands down her back, feeling the shift of muscle under her uniform, the trembling energy just beneath like a hurricane captured in a bottle.

She pulls his pants open and he tries to help, with the belt and the button and zipper and fabric of his underwear pushed aside and down until she has his cock in her hands. She touches him almost clinically at first, like she’s measuring, weighing him. Then it turns into a stroke, skilled and ruthless, and he throws his head against the headrest, biting his lip to keep the silence.

It takes a while to get her pants open. She doesn’t seem inclined to help, only to distract, but when he fumbles and stops she growls in displeasure. Eventually, he gets her pants and underwear pushed under her ass and she helps from there. Wiggling and shifting until everything is pushed down as far as it’ll go, past her boots and covering her feet.

Her pussy is slick and wet and swollen when he finally slides his fingers over her lips. Her clit is stiff, and she’s pushing it into his hand, and he doesn’t want to disappoint. She comes like that, quick and hard with his fingers sliding back and forth over her clit, trapping it and pulling as she arches her back and grinds down into the sensation, her juices running down his hand.

She’s swollen and hot after, sweet where she kisses his mouth as he works his fingers inside of her, feeling the hot, clenching walls of her cunt.

As suddenly as it all started, she grabs his hand and yanks his fingers out, and before he has any time to ask what’s wrong, she’s rising up and sinking down onto his cock, enveloping him in silk and heat and wet. He makes a noise, he thinks, a moan or a grunt, grabbing onto her ass before he can think better of it, thrusting up the way he’s wanted to ever since she asked him to stop the car.

She holds the curve of his shoulder, his hair, fingers digging into skin and pulling as she rides him like a cheap fairground pony and he loves it, wants it. Grasping at her ass, at her thighs and hips and feeling the way she moves, each downstroke of her body making him grunt.

She’s breathing hard into his mouth, swearing under her breath, eyes wide open and boring into his, daring, challenging.

“Mine, mine, mine,” she chants. “You’re mine. All mine.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he gasps, too close to coming to understand the meaning of those words.

She comes again with that same arch in her body, rocking and grinding into him, and he squeezes her ass in relief, letting himself let go too, coming into her body, thrusting deep, once, twice and keeping her there, pressed tight into his lap.

She grabs his hair and makes him look at her. Her eyes are dark, dark green and glittering in the low light.

“You’re mine,” she says. “I took you, and now you’re mine.”

He hums, rubbing his hands over her naked hip, feeling the sweat cooling over her skin. “Yeah, you did,” he agrees, and she smiles, sharp like a predator.

They clean up the best they can and Clint gets back to the driver's seat and back onto the highway. It’s more than an hour’s drive back to HQ, but in the end, he doesn’t go to back to the Triskelion; he drives past the exit and she looks at him from the passenger seat, but doesn’t say anything. She stays quiet as he navigates them towards Columbia Heights, when he pulls in front of her apartment and parks the car.

They take the briefcase out of the back and up to her apartment. It’s dark there too, only the streetlights filtering through the blinds, and Liho’s yellow eyes blinking from the couch, watching them come in. They don’t bother turning on the lights. Leaving the briefcase under the coffee table, hidden from any curious gaze while they take turns showering. She leaves an old SHIELD t-shirt for him and a pair of pants he remembers having lost weeks ago in the gym. Seeing them now, sitting on her bathroom counter, makes him smile.

She’s already in bed when he comes out, toweling his hair. The lights are still off and he can barely see her from under the blankets in the dark, but she’s too still for sleep, her breathing too even, too steady. Liho is curled up by her feet, a small, black cat-loaf.

“Just yours,” he murmurs when he crawls under the blankets next to her, pulling her to his chest, nose pressed into the nape of her neck and the soft hairs growing there. He falls asleep like that, to the steady sound of her breathing and the feel of her ribs expanding within his arms.

“Just mine,” he thinks he hears, just before sleep takes him fully.

 

 


End file.
